Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewBeecham pulls no punches in this lively memoir of his service as a soldier in the famed Iron Brigade and as an officer of African-American troops. Unlike most Civil War memoirs, this one does not romanticize the war nor does it make any concessions to the Confederacy, which Beecham in 1902 considered to have been as wrong and baneful as he had four decades earlier when he gave four years of his life fighting for Union and freedom. -- James M. McPherson, author of The Battle Cry of Freedom
An exceptional memoir by an unusually idealistic and sophisticated Iron Brigade soldier who fought from Bull Run to Gettysburg and who finished the war as an officer in a Black regiment. Beecham understood the war in terms of freedom and rejected the racist and counterfactual postwar myth of the Lost Cause. Highly recommended. -- Alan T. Nolan, author of The Iron Brigade: A Military History
Robert Beecham's outstanding memoir is marked by insight and humor. He never forgot that he was marching to history's drum whether with the Iron Brigade at Gettysburg or on the drill field with his black regiment. This is a front-rank look at the American Civil War. -- Lance J. Herdegen, author of The Men Stood Like Iron: How the Iron Brigade Won Its Name
This bold and refreshing memoir tears away at the growing shroud of myths during the postwar era of reconciliation. . . . For Beecham, like Abraham Lincoln before him, African-Americans made as good soldiers as any, and in Beecham's eyes, sometimes better. -- Joseph T. Glatthaar, author of
Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers
Table of Contents
Foreword Introduction Chapter 1: "As if it were glory and not years of bitter war": Bull Run and a Winter of Idleness: May 1861–April 1862 Chapter 2: "I was pretty sick": Surviving the Military Hospitals: April 1862–December 1862 Chapter 3: "A campaign of adventure": From the Mud March to Chancellorsville: January 1863–June 1863 Chapter 4: "We were all boys then": The First Day at Gettysburg: July 1, 1863 Chapter 5: "The living prepared for the morrow": The Second Day at Gettysburg: July 2, 1863 Chapter 6: "Into the fiercest hell of battle": The Third Day at Gettysburg: July 3, 1863 Chapter 7: "The scenes I witnessed there": Life in a Southern Prison Camp: July–August 1863 Chapter 8: "My first promotion": Becoming an Officer with the U.S. Colored Troops: August–December 1863 Chapter 9: "Soldiers till the last man falls": With the Twenty-third U.S. Colored Troops: January–June 1864 Chapter 10: "We'll show the world today that colored troops are soldiers": The Battle of the Crater: June–July 1864 Chapter 11: "We were a sorry-looking set": Prisoner of War Again: July 1864–March 1865 Chapter 12: "The paths and the vocations of peace": March–June 1865
